Retail sector far from adopting AI for HR functions: Survey

Around 53 per cent of chief human resources officers (CHROs) believe the retail sector is still six quarters away from adopting artificial intelligence (AI) in human resource (HR) functions, according to a survey.

Around 59 per cent of respondents said one of the major reason for this is the absence of seamless flow of data between different HR functions as the information lies in silos and different platforms making it difficult to have a unified view for better insights, the survey by HR services firm PeopleStrong said Monday.

The survey conducted among 1,200 retail companies to understand their HR functions revealed that only 24.49 per cent companies spend more than USD 10 per employee at present.

This number, however, is expected to increase in the next two years when organisations from the USD 5-10 spend bracket would hike up their per employee spend on HR technology, it said.

Of all the HR functions, 55.1 per cent of CHROs allocate a major portion of this spend towards core HR functions, which includes human resource information system, because this supports their need of maintaining a centralised repository of employee master data, it added.

PeopleStrong said there is a tremendous potential for this number to see a hike in the coming months as CHROs adopt new-age HR technology solutions and shift away from traditional enterprise resource planning (ERPs).

Only 18.37 per cent CHROs dedicate this spend to recruitment and on-boarding because they are still accustomed to the traditional ways of hiring, the survey showed.

The spend allocation towards workforce management, which includes leave and attendance management (currently at 10.2 per cent), is expected to increase in the future because CHROs are now understanding the full impact of HR technology on speeding up time-taking tasks and also increasing employee productivity, it said.

Around 59.18 per cent of retail companies are already using cloud to store their HR data, the survey said, adding this will only increase given that by adopting cloud they are enabling data availability anytime, anywhere.